Howard done fvcked up

Remember the caller Howard put on the air who was at work as an IRS collector? No?

Well last week he picked up on a caller who was at work for the IRS. He was on the phone with a client and it sounded like he had left his cell phone on his desk. You could hear everything he was saying perfectly. He was talking interest rates, math, etc and Howard went into his "I'm bad at math" bit. The caller finished his call and did talk to Howard.

BOSTON (CBS) – A Cape Cod woman says the IRS is to blame after her personal information was broadcast on the Howard Stern show. “No one should go through something like this,” she says.

The woman, who did not want her face shown or name used, says it all began when she called the IRS to iron out a tax issue.

“I started to receive phone calls and text messages from all over the country informing me that the information I was discussing with the IRS agent was being aired on the Howard Stern show.”

A portion of what she thought was a private call was in fact being transmitted via satellite to millions of listeners, including her personal phone number.

“As soon as I heard of this information I just started to quiver, and had what I would call an out of body experience,” she says. “I couldn’t believe it at first I thought it was a joke.”

The IRS agent was apparently on another line with the Stern show at the same time, but didn’t seem to realize he was on the air.

In a statement to WBZ, the IRS said, “We are aware of this troubling situation, and we are currently reviewing the matter. The IRS takes the confidentiality of taxpayer information very seriously, and we have high standards that we expect and require employees to follow.”

“A special agent informed me that in fact what I had explained was accurate, that the agent that I had spoken with initially was sent home on administrative leave and that the case was under investigation,” the woman said.

The woman says the damage has been done. She’s gotten a slew of prank calls from Stern listeners and is now considering getting a lawyer.

“My phone number is out there, my personal conversation and I just feel terribly violated and I feel like I’m in jeopardy that my credit information might be out there and I’m just totally devastated.”

Ever since this happened the woman says she’s been a nervous wreck. In fact, she can’t even eat; she says she thought she was speaking to somebody she could trust, but that clearly was not the case.

Coming to terms with your tax issues can be intimidating and sometimes, embarrassing. It’s even more embarrassing when your private information is broadcast to millions of people.

That’s exactly what a woman from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, says happened to her. Thewoman says she called the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to talk about her tax bill. At the same time, the IRS representative was on hold with Howard Stern’s radio show. When the radio show took the IRS representative’s call off hold, it apparently wasn’t made clear to the IRS representative – who just kept talking. That conversation was broadcast on air.

How did the woman find out? Her phone started buzzing as she received numerous calls and texts from all over the country. Her personal phone number had been broadcast along with part of the conversation.

She asked the IRS rep, “Are you speaking to Howard Stern?” The woman said that he replied “something to the effect of ‘I was’ or ‘I was on hold’ or something like that.”

Stern tried to get the IRS representative’s attention by shouting his name (“Jimmy! JIMMY!”) but the IRS rep (“Jimmy from Long Island”) kept talking. Co-host Robin Quivers joked, “If he’s working we can’t interrupt him.” Later, the pair asked the rep if he was a collector and he admitted that he worked “for the government.” He did mention taxes during the call with the woman and it sounds like, from the brief clip, that he might have been a Revenue Officer or other IRS representative in the Collections department.

While the woman’s name wasn’t broadcast, other personal information was shared over the radio. She says, “I just feel terribly violated and I feel like I’m in jeopardy that my credit information might be out there and I’m just totally devastated.”

The Howard Stern Show is currently broadcast on satellite radio on Sirius XM. In the show’s heyday on mainstream radio, it reached 20 million listeners. For the first quarter of 2015, Sirius reported 27.74 million subscribers.

The woman told a local news outlet that the incident has been “devastating” and she has not been able to eat because of the stress. Of course, she’s considering lawyering up.

The IRS representative might want to consider it, too. He’s since been placed on administrative leave, according to the woman. The case is under investigation.

I’ve reached out to IRS for further comment. In the meantime, the IRS did release this statement to the media:

We are aware of this troubling situation, and we are currently reviewing the matter. The IRS takes the confidentiality of taxpayer information very seriously, and we have high standards that we expect and require employees to follow.

(Author’s note: Since the original piece posted, the IRS sent a more complete statement which, in addition to the statement above includes the following language:

When situations arise, we take quick action and work with Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.)
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Howard clearly knew he was listening in on a private conversation (a money transaction with private info, no less) where neither party had knowledge they were being listened in on at that moment. Rather than hang up or dump it, he let it continue in his lazy quest for the radio gold that continues to escape him (and did yet again). Sure, the IRS idiot is also at fault and should be fired, but Howard/Sirius (are they 2 companies?) has responsibility in this as well as he let it out on the air. He won't get in any trouble, though, but how sweet would it be if he did?

I mentioned this on the other thread: Buchwald and co publicity stunt. Some weird way to find out how many listeners there actually are. Howig knows all the tricks, and if he doesn't, his management does.